


Cinnamon and Pine

by afewreelthoughts



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Christmas, Depression, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 10:16:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5493590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afewreelthoughts/pseuds/afewreelthoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas is convinced that a trip to London at Christmas will cure Edward's perpetual sadness.  Edward is not so sure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Let’s go to London for Christmas,” Thomas said in the November of 1916.  

Edward knitted his brows.  “We spend Christmas here, in the country.  It’s a family tradition.”

Since Edward’s return to his family that summer, Thomas had counted 40 separate fights between him and his mother, and close to fifty with his younger brother, Jack.  It was hard to blame Edward.  There was little he could do on his own in the country, even with Thomas’s company.  They walked and they fished, and Thomas promised they would go horseback-riding in the new year.

“That doesn’t sound safe,” Edward said.

“If we could both of us get on one horse, it would be... but your parents might object.”  

Edward had smiled.

Edward did not smile often these days.  He did not cry either, but after an endless day or a terrible fight, clawed at the scars on his wrists and shook with withheld emotion.

“I think it would be a good idea to go away for a few days,” Thomas continued.  “It doesn’t have to be on Christmas itself.”

“But we have family coming.”

“Then we’ll go afterwards.”  Thomas lay a hand on Edward’s leg.  “Please.  I love Christmas in London.  Do it for me?”

“I’ll think about it,” Edward said.

But he said nothing else about it.  Not until December.  In the days before Christmas, family started arriving from all corners of the island.  The large farmhouse filled with people, laughter, and music.  Everyone wanted to know who Thomas was.  “Edward’s valet,” Thomas answered.  “He needs more help, since the war."

“Can’t see why he won’t let one of us do that,” said an aunt.  She pursed her lips.  “Where is Edward?  I haven’t seen him all night.”

Thomas looked around the gathered crowd and found him nowhere.  “Let me go find him.”

Edward was upstairs, curled in a corner of the hall.

“Too loud downstairs?"

"That’s why I don’t like London.  I didn’t like it before the war, either, too many people making too much noise.”

“Everyone downstairs wants to talk to you,” Thomas said.

“And what if I don’t want to talk to them?”

“Come down with me?” Thomas asked.  “We’ll get through it together?”

Edward held out his hand, and Thomas pulled him to his feet, retrieving his cane from where it lay propped against the wall.

“They all want to know why you need a valet when you have such a loyal family.  I don’t know what to tell them.  Because we share a bed?"

“Because you’re prettier than Aunt Margaret.”

Thomas kissed him on the cheek before leading him down the stairs.  

At dinner the heavy food began to mellow the crowd.  Before dessert, Edward’s brother Jack clicked his fork on his glass.  He stood, a wide smile on his face.  Everyone seated around the long table turned to him.

“You attention, please.  I have an announcement to make.”  He took the hand of the pretty woman seated next to him.  “As you all know, Agnes and I have been seeing each other since this spring.”

Thomas felt Edward tense next to him.  

“Tonight I asked this beautiful woman to marry me, and she said yes.”

Loud applause followed, and Jack kissed Agnes’s hand.

Edward thrust his hands below the table, and Thomas pried his nails away from where they gauged into his scars.  Edward let him.

“We want to get married in January,” Jack was saying.

“So soon?” asked Aunt Margaret.

“We don’t want to wait,” Agnes said.  “And besides, we don’t need a big wedding.”

Edward tried to stand up.  Thomas held his arm down.

Edward did not relax through all of dessert.  He barely ate any of it, as he had for the entire dinner, only broke the food apart with his fork and knife.  No one seemed to notice.

The family gathered around the piano for carols after dinner.  During “Good King Wenceslas,” Edward slipped away.  Thomas saw him this time and followed.  He found him leaning his forehead against a window in their room.  Thomas rested a hand on his shoulder.  

Edward whispered something against the glass.

“Yes?”

“Get me out of here,” he whispered.

“I promise,” Thomas said.

Edward kissed him hard.  

 

 

They stayed until Christmas morning, then caught the first train into the city.  

“This is my fault, isn’t it?” Jack said, as Thomas bid him goodbye on Edward’s behalf.

“I hope not,” Thomas said.  “He just needs to be somewhere else for a while."

It was snowing when they got off the train at Knightsbridge.

“Take your hat off,” Thomas told Edward.

The first drop of snow on Edward's head seemed to startle him.  Then he tipped his face up to the sky.

“I’ll see to our bags at the hotel, then we should take a walk in the park."

The hotel was grand, and, as Thomas had been told by good sources, discreet. Edward spoke to the concierge, while Thomas slid the bellhop a large tip.  The bellhop winked.

They walked arm-in-arm through Hyde Park.  Edward’s cheeks and nose had turned pink in the cold.  A light fall of snow dusted the shoulders of his coat and hat like lace.

“London is beautiful at Christmas,” Thomas said.  “A…” he hesitated, unsure how far he was transgressing.  “A good place to fall in love.”

"Have you… fallen in love here?” Edward asked.

“I…”

“It’s all right if you have,” Edward said, but Thomas knew he did not mean it.

“He was a bad man.”

“You’ve told me about him.  You never said it was love.”

From across the park, they heard the noises coming from the market.  “See.  I told you.  London’s loud at Christmas,” Edward said.  

“Yes, but we don’t know any of these people.  We can do and say what we want around them.”

“Except kiss.”

“Probably.”   Thomas kissed his hand.  “Tell me what might cheer you up.”

“My brother is getting married.  The farm will go to him.”

“You’re the eldest son.”

“I’m a cripple.  They won’t let me have it.”

Thomas sighed.  They had had this conversation before. “Do you even want it?” he asked.

Edward halted.  “Of course I want it!”

“Because it doesn’t seem to give you much joy.”

“Did Jack tell you to say that?  When you talked to him before you left.”

“No."

“Of course it gives me joy.  I love my home,” Edward said almost fiercely, gripping his cane until his knuckles were white as the snow that had begun to gather on the ground.  “It’s my family - my family and you - who won’t leave me alone and keep questioning what I want.”

“I’m sorry, Edward.  Come to the markets with me?”

Edward pulled away.  “I’m going back to our room.”  

“I love you,” Thomas said.  No one was close enough to hear.  

Edward began to walk back across the park.  Thomas watched him go.


	2. Chapter 2

Thomas spent hours at the market in Hyde Park.  He thought that Edward might appreciate the time to himself, but when he returned, arms full of gifts, he saw Edward still curled on the grand bed, dressed as he had been on the train.  

Edward sat up as Thomas came in, his nose extended before him.

“I brought you some cider,” Thomas said.

“Something else, too?”

“A tree.”

“A Christmas tree?” Edward asked hopefully.

“A small one.  Since we’ll be here for a couple of days, I thought we deserved one.”

Edward reached forward, crumpled one of its prickly branches in his hand, and held the crushed needles to his nose.  “No mistletoe?” he said, but there was a twinkle in his eye.

Thomas saw his face light up as though he were waking from a terrible dream and realizing it was not real.

“We don’t need mistletoe,” Thomas said, put down his armful of gifts, and kissed him.  

Edward kissed him back, and let himself be pushed down into the mattress, further mussing his fine suit and his curls.  

“I have a gift for you,” Thomas whispered in his ear.

“Yes, I can feel it distinctly.”

“Then I have two gifts for you.  Which do you want first?”

Edward kissed his neck.  “Either…"

"Keep in mind, we’re going to church later…"

“Church?” Edward sounded confused.

“I thought it might be nice.”

Edward pulled back, but did not look upset.  “Perhaps the gift in wrapping paper might be better right now?”

“Drink your cider first,” Thomas said, and handed him the mug.  

Edward cupped his hands around it and inhaled deeply.  “I just want to smell it.”  

“Eat a biscuit, then,” Thomas said, handing him a plate of them.

“Where’s all this from?”

“Downstairs.  We are at a nice hotel, after all.”

Edward ate one, all the time keeping his nose over the cider.  The steam made his cheeks rosy.  “Last Christmas, one of the men in my company bought a stick of cinnamon with him to the Front.  On Christmas morning, we crumbled it into tiny pieces and put them in our coffee.”

Thomas might have apologized at another time, for bringing up memories of the Front, but Edward seemed perfectly contented.

“We all prayed for a Christmas like we’d heard about the year before.  Caroling and a ceasefire.  It didn’t happen.”  He took a small sip from the mug.

“Here’s your gift.”  Thomas handed him a large, heavy package, the last he had carried into the room with him.

Edward frowned.  “It feels like a book.”  He put his mug on the bedside table, narrowly missing spilling its contents on the floor.  “I have no need for books, Thomas.”

“Open it and stop complaining.”

Edward tore off the wrapping paper with abandon and ran his hands over the cover.

"What is it, Thomas?  It’s a bumpy book.  You bought me a bumpy book?”

“It’s Braille.  I thought we could learn together.  There are classes here in the city, though I could find someone to teach you at home in the country, if you’d prefer."

Edward frowned.  “I’m twenty-five, Thomas.  That’s too old to learn a new language,” he said and dropped the book.  It fell open on the ground, stretching the spine.

Thomas stifled his anger and knelt between Edward’s legs.  “Maybe your other gift might be more to your liking.”  He ran his hands up Edward’s thighs.

Edward bit his lip.  

Thomas brought his mouth to the front of Edward’s trousers and let the hot air fall from his lips.

While Edward made soft noises at the touch, nothing stirred below the belt. Thomas unbuttoned the front of Edward’s trousers and tugged them down with his pants.  He took him into his mouth and sucked.  Beneath Thomas’s ministrations, he stayed completely soft.

“You can’t expect me to learn Braille…” Edward said.  “You... can’t… I can’t do it.”

Thomas sat back on the ground.

“You could… we could do something else right now,” Edward said and drew his trousers down over his feet and tossed them on the bed.  “We could… I was thinking you might want to…"

“If I know what you’re asking, you’ve never asked me for that before, Edward.”

“I know.”

“Why now?”

“Because...” 

“Letting me fuck you won’t fix your problems,” Thomas snapped.  He stood and retrieved the book from where it lay sprawled open on the floor.  

The silence grew unbearable.  Edward scrambled to put on his trousers, and Thomas made no move to help him.  

“It’s not a long walk to church,” he said at last.

“Isn’t it time for Christmas dinner?” Edward said.  “There will be no one there.”

“Exactly,” Thomas said.  “I thought you’d like it that way.”

 

 

The remained silent on their walk through the city.  Most of London had settled into their homes for drinks and dinner, and Thomas chose the smaller, less travelled roads.  Their footsteps were muffled by the now melting snow.

“We’re here,” Thomas said, when he stopped in front of the broad doors to a cathedral, but he knew Edward had heard their destination long before he did.

The voices of a choir poured from the cathedral doors, and Edward lifted his head.  The voices were those of adults, and they were not trained, but the rich sound that resonated in the Latin words made Thomas shiver.  Edward stared transfixed in the cold.

When the hymn was finished, Thomas whispered, “I walked here with Tom Branson one day, and I thought the music was some of the loveliest I’d ever heard.  I wish I’d gone inside, but it’s a Catholic church, so..."

“It’s beautiful,” Edward said.  Then, more quietly, “I didn’t think it would fix my problems.  I just thought it would be nice."

“I’m sorry.  You deserve nice things on Christmas."

“I'm not so sure,” Edward said.  “I don’t know if i can appreciate them."

"You can.  You just get in your own way, as if you won’t allow yourself to...”

“Help me, Thomas…” Edward interrupted and rubbed at his wrist.

"I will keep you here with me,” Thomas said, his voice catching. “I promise."

The sound of a single voice echoed in the cathedral, reciting scripture.

“Let’s go inside.”

“What?” Thomas said.

“My family’s Episcopalian.  It's almost the same thing."

"Easy for you to say.  I’m likely to burst into flames on crossing the threshold.”

“Shall we find out?”  Edward smiled.  The snow had begun to fall again and it glittered in the lamplight, giving him a halo.

“I love you,” Thomas said.

“I love you.  Merry Christmas, Thomas."

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @drop-da-bates on tumblr


End file.
